Faced with the impossibility of teaching in person, teachers have to reinvent their learning methodologies. One option is for them to videotape their classes themselves and then share them with their students. This is the objective of the following selection of proposals.
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Just over a month ago, students have not been to their study centers due to the health crisis caused by the coronavirus. This situation has caused teachers to have to adapt their content and methodologies to the new daily life of students. Thus, along with the textbooks and the different reference materials that have been made available, many others can be added.
What if teachers videotaped their classes from home with just the computer (or tablet) and a program that had to be downloaded? This collection of tools is ideal for this.
Debut is a program that records the computer screen and videos that are recorded with the webcam. In addition, the teacher can record from other external devices and has an option to schedule the recording time. How are these videos? What characteristics do they have? These pieces can have different formats (AVI, WMV, MP4, MOV …) and it is possible to introduce color effects, titles, timestamps, add subtitles. In the same way, it is possible to choose if we want to record in full screen, a single window or a specific area. Also adjust the resolution, size and frame rate of each capture. On the other hand, there is the option of recording video only or video and audio simultaneously. The home version is free.
This tool is available in three versions depending on the browser to be used (Chrome, Firefox or Opera) and it is prepared to record videos from all over the work desk to which a password can be assigned as a security measure. It is also possible to customize the screen resolution and frame rate, record video from another active program and from a webcam as well. Meanwhile, the premium version incorporates more advanced features such as cropping or adding a watermark.
Taking screenshots of complete web pages or of a certain part is another of the alternatives that it incorporates. From here, the teacher can edit and annotate these captures, add graphics and text boxes, add badges and arrows, modify sizes, highlight certain blocks …
With a user community of over nine million people worldwide and over 55 million videos created, the free ScreenCast-O-Matic tool is used to record, edit and share videos between teachers and students, integrating with some well-known tools in the classroom like Google Drive and Google Classroom. In addition, it is possible to apply an editor to the videos to modify colors, create transitions, add arrows, lines, apply overlay effects, highlight certain areas of the image … This option can be tried for free for a month.
It is an extension for Chrome available in two versions (one free and the other paid) that allows you to take screenshots of the computer screen, the webcam and the audio from the microphone. In Full HD quality, videos can be edited to add text to displayed images, for example. These videos are also automatically saved to Google Drive and easily shared. Another option is to share them in Google Classroom or if the teacher has their own YouTube channel, upload it to this platform. Videos can be exported to MP3, MP4 and animated GIF formats.
Available for Android and iOS operating systems , it is a free application that records the content displayed on the screen and the ambient sound that exists around the tablet. You can choose between two image qualities (QHD and Full HD) and activate a countdown timer to start recording.
